5 Ways to Build a Video Culture at Your Company

If you were attracted to the title of this post, maybe you’re already sold on video. I mean, how could you not be? Video is everywhere – whether it be a competitor’s website or your Facebook feed. It’s now an unavoidable content type.

It can be easy to get video envy when you see so many companies doing video so well. Before working for a video hosting company, I viewed video as intriguing and useful, but also very intimidating. How could little old me make a video like the ones on Moz or MailChimp’s websites? They must pay a small fortune to hire professional video producers, right?

Not always. I’ve come to realize that as long as you have a pulse and a camera (or even a phone) that you too can do video for your business.

In order to scale your video efforts, it’s important to use it across teams. Whether it be to humanize your homepage, recruit new hires, or close more deals, video is a useful platform not just for marketers, but for sales, recruiters, support reps, and even engineers! The issue is, how do you get your colleagues to buy into video as well?

I’ve got you covered. Here are five actionable tips to help you build a video culture at your company.

Tip #1: Create a Physical Space for Video Creation

Do you have an in-house studio? For those of you who don’t, get on that! Having a designated space to shoot video that is accessible to the entire company will make it easy for everyone to have the opportunity to shoot videos for their teams.

I know this might seem like a daunting task. There’s a million things to take into consideration: What space can you use in your office building? What about lighting? Tripods? Backdrops?

Really, it’s not that hard! Wistia has put together a quick guide on how to turn any conference room into a video studio, in four simple steps:

Set up a backdrop – A solid color background looks best, and ideally not just a white wall (which not only look boring but can cause glare). We recommend getting a roll of seamless paper from a photography supply store.

Get some studio lights – Overhead lighting isn’t flattering, and with studio lights, you don’t have to worry about the sun going behind a cloud (or using a room with no windows). A larger bulb creates more flattering lighting. Try a ring light like the ones shown in this lighting guide.

Control the sound – Get some sound dampening pads for the walls or, in a pinch, blankets, to avoid distracting echoes.

Leave it all in place! – The key to making sure your video studio gets used it to have it ready to go anytime.

At Wistia, we’ve even set up smaller video stations for customer-facing employees to record quick, casual videos and shoot them over to prospects and customers. The first step to encouraging more video creation at your company is building the space to do it.

Tip #2: Build a Video Advocate on Every Team

It’s likely not the case that your colleagues aren’t sold on video. It’s more likely that they just haven’t had the bandwidth to think about it and execute it. Maybe they’re aware of the benefits, but feeling the intimidation factor of executing a well-produced video.

This landing page features WordStream’s own Jacob Coblenz in a green screen video

If you can break down the intimidation barrier blocking their video efforts by using your persuasive skills to show how video is not as hard as they think, then they can buy into the idea of video and expand it across their team. The key is figuring out the who, how, and what for each team. Let’s start with the who...

Who?

There might be teams where there’s a clear fit of who would be the best video advocate. There also might be teams that you feel clueless about. How do you figure out who to go after? Use your networking skills to network with your own colleagues! If the team is smaller, present to all of them. If the team is a bit larger, talk to someone on the team to get a sense of who would be most enthused to take video on and encourage others to do the same.

How?

Once you’ve identified the right people to talk to on each team, you should schedule a meeting with enough time to prepare your case. You must embrace your inner salesperson. Share compelling statistics about the effectiveness of video. For example, “Did you know that Bob closed 80% more deals when they started using video voicemails?”

Break the intimidation barrier of video by having resources on hand to train them. Take the following steps to complete the how:

Prepare your case

Pull together a polished presentation for each team

Schedule a time to make an in-person pitch

What?

You need to highlight the unique ways their team can benefit. To do so, put yourself in the shoes of your colleagues. Ask questions like: What are their pain points? What are their goals? How can video help them accomplish these goals? What similar companies are doing this and seeing results? What internal resources will make this easier?

Don’t forget to follow-up like a true salesperson. Be persistent!

Tip #3: Make Video a Part of Customer-Facing Employee Workflows

Every customer-facing employee should be using video. Whether they’re in sales, service, or support, for colleagues interacting with people outside of your organization they need to be using video on a regular basis.

Video not only takes away the dryness of communicating via email and the distance felt when communicating over the phone rather than in person, but it can also lead to higher chances of turning a lead into a customer. It can also reduce the risk of customer churn.

If the person on the other end feels connected to you in a real, human way they’re going to have warmer feelings about your business. What better way to do this than video? Here are a few ways to start using video in customer interactions:

1) Create video email signatures for every customer-facing employee

What’s a video email signature? Well, instead of the boring line of text with your name, title, and a company logo, a video email signature brings your personality to life. What you’ll need to do is shoot some short videos of each employee, showcasing their personalities.

Ensure these videos are concise, entertaining, and most importantly, that they show off the employee’s genuine personality. Once you’ve shot the video all you need to do is paste the linked thumbnail image into the your email signature like so:

This linked thumbnail image should direct the individual to a simple landing page showcasing the video and providing some contact information. I built mine through HubSpot and kept it very simple so the viewer can just watch the video and go on with their day.

2) Incorporate video into your sales process

Video and sales go together like peanut butter and jelly. Your typically prospect might be suspicious of your sales reps – they just want your money, right? Well, video can easily change this negative stigma by helping them create a more personalized and relatable experience.

When the lead on the other end realizes they’re not just working with a greedy robot, they’ll be much more likely to open their wallets. Take this example of a video voicemail from BambooHR:

The above example is very polished and clearly well-produced. This is great for that type of voicemail because it’s not personalized, and she can use it at scale. However, more personalized videos don’t need to be overly produced. They can be a bit scruffier and have a truly substantial impact. Take this example from the marketing agency Blueleadz:

Blueleadz has seen a 36.9% higher close rate when a personalized video is used!

3) Keep your customers informed with personal video outreach

Video is a powerful medium to keep engaged with your customers. Whether it be sending a quick Happy Holidays video or a longer video explaining some recent product updates, letting your customers know you’re thinking about them is best done via video.

Recently we came out with a new version of one of our integrations, so in order to inform my customers I made a video detailing the updates, and broke the video into chapters to ensure my customers could navigate to the sections of the video they’re most interested in.

Another way to do this is by having your product team make a product update video on a monthly basis, which you can then email out to your list of customers.

Tip #4: Hold Video Delight Competitions

In order to encourage more video creation across teams, it can help to make it a competition. At Wistia we did just that, and from personal experience I can tell you this works.

During the last two Februaries my colleague Sarah-Mei Estrada, a leader on the support team, has run a contest called “Delightuary” where she encourages all employees to make at least one video responding to a customer ticket that comes into our support inbox. These videos are typically shot with iPhones, and creativity is encouraged because there are trophies to be won at the awards ceremony held a month later.

“I realized that making videos for customers can seem like a big challenge, so turning it into a month-long holiday with an awards ceremony really helped get people excited about it,” said Sarah-Mei.

To do this successfully at your company take the following steps:

Present the contest to your company.

Send out a video email to get people hyped up.

Tempt your colleagues with COOL prizes.

Have the company vote on different Oscar-inspired categories (think best actor, breakout star, outstanding stunt coordination, etc.)

Plan a fun after-work awards ceremony.

If you test out this strategy at your company, I guarantee you’ll see more video creation happening long after the month you choose for the competition.

Tip #5: Use Video to Communicate Internally

Last, but not least, in order to grow a video culture at your company you absolutely must be using video internally. There are several ways you can do this:

1) Using video for small announcements

Video is an easy way to communicate internal announcements, whether it’s announcing some new beverage options (like the email our office manager sent out below), informing your colleagues about an event (like movie night or an all-staff field day), or just sending out some housekeeping announcements. Making a quick video will actually get your colleagues’ attention, rather than sending a boring email that will immediately be ignored or archived.

2) Create a recurring series to keep everyone informed

What happened at the office this week? This is a question many employees may have if they’re remote, sick, or out of office. Communication is critical for business success, and many companies struggle with a lack of communication, especially between teams. Even when folks are in the office it can be easy to miss important things that occurred, especially if your company has multiple locations.

Form a cross-functional team (or a few teams that share the responsibilities) in charge of sharing weekly updates on office happenings – betas the product and engineering teams are working on, marketing campaigns running, social happenings, or even personal announcements (for instance, Sheila is having a baby!). Send out the video update each week to all employees, ensuring it’s sparked with personality to keep everyone watching.

3) Use video to build a remote culture

Meet Leah Knobler!

Leah works in People Operations at the support ticketing software company HelpScout, and was tasked with building a strong company culture where the majority of employees are remote. Sounds crazy, right? How do you build company culture when there is no physical office space?

When people think about company culture they usually think of an environment, but Leah has used video to prove that culture isn’t just about physical presence. You can read all about how Leah has managed to do this in her blog post on HelpScout’s website.

My favorite series she does is called “At home with HelpScout,” where each remote employee films some footage that Leah strung together into a fun montage. This allows for employees to get to know each other on a more personal level without having to leave their computers. Check it out below!